


Like Ships in the Night

by sawbones



Series: peacemaker [2]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: First Time, M/M, rivals to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 04:18:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11028498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawbones/pseuds/sawbones
Summary: "Gil doesn’twoo,” he said indignantly, “I am notwooable.”Suvi smiled her same warm, placid smile and placed her hand on his arm. She leaned forward like she was going to tell him a secret, “Would you like to be?”





	Like Ships in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeraldOfKirkwall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeraldOfKirkwall/gifts).



> This is a commission for the lovely and very accommodating [arainaizev](http://arainaizev.tumblr.com/). Thank you for commissioning me, I had fun writing this.

Kallo tried to not eavesdrop on Ryder when he came to have one of his semi-regular chats with Suvi. It wasn’t that he had no interest in their lively theological discussions - on the contrary, the many religions and facets of faith found throughout the galaxy would always be an endless source of fascination to him - it was because of the often patronising tone Ryder took with Suvi when she wouldn’t concede to his point, like he humouring a particularly imaginative child and not talking with one of the brightest (human) minds Kallo had ever encountered.

Suvi didn’t seem to mind at all, even claiming to look forward to their ‘spirited debates’ as she kindly called it, but Kallo wasn’t sure he’d always be able to bite his tongue - so ten minutes after he appeared this time and Kallo heard the first _‘well, actually’,_ he very nearly jumped for joy when his comm buzzed urgently with a new message. Nobody even contacted him unless it was an emergency. He hoped it was something absolutely disastrous that would require his undivided attention for the next twenty minutes.

When he pulled the message up on screen, all that it contained was several pages of numbers. It took Kallo a frankly embarrassing amount of time - nearly two and a half seconds - to recognise it as not just numbers, but equations. He scrolled to the top of the message with a frown that only deepened when he saw who the sender was. He opened a voice channel.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Some minor adjustments to the fuel reuptake inhibitor calculations,” Gil said. He sounded distracted, busy, but then again he always was.

“I can see _that_ \- completely unnecessary, by the way, doesn’t take into account the centrifugal force of acceleration, would expend just as much fuel as it saves. Did you mean to send this to me?”

“It has your name on it, doesn’t?” Gil said, not rising to the bait.

“Could have just been yet another oversight,” Kallo said pointedly. He paused, acutely aware that Suvi had went so far as to shush Ryder so she could listen in, “Are you asking for my permission?”

Gil’s bark of laughter was loud enough to make him flinch, “Don’t be ridiculous, it's already done. I just thought I’d let you know.”

“I don’t understand,” Kallo said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Gil wasn’t exactly what he would call a predictable man, often led by his whims, but he wouldn’t do something like this - a grand gesture, relatively speaking, since he considered every second of his work day utterly indispensable - unless he thought he could get something out of it.

“Come on, Kallo - I even used simplified math, just for you.”

Kallo could hear the smirk in Gil’s voice; he closed the channel with an indignant huff before he could try and provoke him further. There was an awkward silence on the bridge, since Ryder and Suvi had given up on their own stimulating conversation to eavesdrop on the brief spat. Kallo didn’t so much as look at them. He didn’t want to encourage them.

“So,” Ryder began, because he never needed much encouragement anyway, “How long has that been going on?”

“How long has _what_ been going on?” Kallo shot back with a withering glance. Ryder’s brows jumped.

“Alright, forget I asked,” he said, holding his hands up defensively in a universal sign of ‘say no more’.

“How about we continue this later, Ryder?” Suvi chipped in, touching his elbow with an inoffensive smile. He took the hint and left to continue his rounds of the other crew members.

“And don’t you start either,” Kallo warned her once the doors slid shut. He could see she was just itching to say something, so he nipped that in the bud before she could get a single word in edgeways. She settled for giving him a _knowing_ look, the same one she flashed any time Gil came up in conversation in the weeks since the night they’d spent together after Vortex. It wasn’t much better.

 

\--

 

Due to a simple quirk of their advanced metabolisms, salarians rarely had to sleep. They could comfortably get by on an hour or so of light rest per cycle - Kallo had gotten into the pilot’s habit of stealing five or ten minutes here and there throughout the day. It was something of a dark joke among his people that it’s how they manage to do twice as much as a turian or human with a third of the life-span. As such, there were often times when he was inevitably the only one left awake on the Tempest since no-one else aboard could scrape by on so little sleep.

Well, almost no-one.

Kallo padded down the hallway towards the galley, empty coffee cup in hand. He didn’t really need the extra stimulation from the caffeine, but he liked the taste; Suvi had been working on trying to convert him to a fellow tea-drinker, but it was too floral for him. Besides, he knew Suvi didn’t bring much of it with her, and she’d not think twice about giving up half her precious supply to someone who didn’t even like it that much.

The door to the galley slid open automatically as he approached, revealing that he wasn’t the only one still up. Gil was there, his back to the door; he was still in his engineering suit, though his gloves were tossed off to the side. He was humming tunelessly to himself while he waited for his own coffee to be ready. Kallo didn’t say anything; Gil didn’t turn to look at him, but greeted him anyway.

“Good morning,” he said, “Or good evening. Goodnight, maybe? Never really know what to say when you’re on a ship.”

“Try ‘good everyone-else-is-asleep-and-I-should-be-too-ing’, perhaps,” Kallo offered, a touch dry.

“Point taken, but I’m doing just fine,” Gil said, though Kallo knew he’d say that regardless of how he actually felt. He turned to him, held out his hand, “Here, give me your cup.”

He didn’t totally understand why the human pushed himself as hard as he did, not sleeping for days on end even when there was no crisis. He supposed in a way he could relate to that feeling of sole responsibility, of the idea that even with a talented and reliable crew he couldn’t relinquish control for even a moment. It's the same reason why he was going to take his coffee back to the bridge and spend the next few hours staring out into the endless emptiness of darkspace - no scourge, no asteroid fields, no reason for him to not turn on the autopilot. In the end he trusted Gil to know his limits, even if a better rested head engineer would give him some peace of mind.

Kallo handed over his cup. A few moments later and Gil handed it back. Their fingers brushed for just a split second, but it was enough to bring Kallo right back to the night on the Nexus. Even as he murmured his thanks, he could feel those same fingers graze the inside of his thighs, press against his slit and then into it as he relived the memory in real time. He had to swallow his moan down with a mouthful of scalding coffee, burning his tongue. It was black, strong and obscenely sweet - just the way Kallo liked it, though he had no idea how Gil knew that.

“I think I might have given you the wrong cup,” Gil said, raising a brow at Kallo’s odd reaction.

“It’s good,” he said, trying to keep his composure between his scalded mouth and the sudden slickness between his legs, “And-- really actually very hot.”

Gil didn’t have any obvious barb to make at that, which in itself was quite concerning. He simply inclined his head and leaned against the counter beside Kallo to sip his own coffee. Had the hand touch been deliberate? Was he trying to provoke him? Even though the animosity between them had mellowed considerably, they hadn’t spoken about their drunken encounter and Kallo almost found himself wishing Gil would just come out and say something, even if it was just to ridicule him some more. This silent exchange didn’t suit either of them.

“Kallo--” Gil began, startling the salarian.

“I should get back to the bridge,” Kallo cut him off, because even if he _almost_ wished he would say something, he would still rather toss himself out the airlock than actually confront it, “Thank you for the coffee.”

If Gil was surprised or disappointed, he didn’t let it show. He simply inclined his head again, almost toasting Kallo with his cup as he made his escape. Kallo hesitated in the doorway; stopped, turned.

“Just-- _try_ and get some sleep before you spill coffee on the drive core and kill us all,” he said. Gil’s smile just before the door closed on him was tired, but annoyingly genuine.

 

\--

 

“Look at this. Look at it!”

Kallo thrust the offending item at Suvi; she took it careful, examined it. She smiled brightly.

“A model of the Tempest? Oh, how precious,” she said, “Where did you get it?”

“I found it in my bunk, of all places,” Kallo said, “My bunk - can you imagine that?”

He was-- well, not _outraged_ , exactly, although he felt like he should have been and he didn’t know why. The model had been propped against his rarely-used pillow, a faithful reproduction of the ship that had clearly been made and painted by hand, set on a plain plastic base. It was, for lack of a better word, quite perfect. Kallo didn’t know why seeing it had made him angry.

“There’s a note in the base,” Suvi said. She untaped and unfolded the slip of paper without thinking to ask first, but Kallo would have let her read it anyway, “Oh. Have you read it yet?”

Kallo swivelled round to stare at her, “What does it say?”

“It says ‘you can’t always be with the Tempest, but now the Tempest can always be with you’,” she read. She pressed the note to her chest, simpering, “Oh Kallo, that’s so _sweet_.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean, is that a threat? You can’t always be with the Tempest? Of course I can, it’s my ship,” Kallo blustered. Suvi gave him a long-suffering look.

“I’m guessing he means the upcoming shore leave,” she said. The Tempest was scheduled to be dry-docked for a few days the next time they were back at the Nexus for some essential repairs and fine-tuning they couldn’t do on the move. It wouldn’t be for long, and of course Kallo would be involved in every step of the process, but he still wasn’t looking forward to it, “Look how he signed it, Kallo. I don’t think that’s a threat.”

Kallo hesitated at first, but eventually crossed to sit beside Suvi on the sofa. He took the slip of paper from her; the script was handwritten, the words surprisingly neat. There, at the bottom: _yours, G_.

“Yours,” he repeated. He blinked at Suvi, “Mine?”

“I think he’s trying to woo you,” she said. She seemed so calm, so unsurprised by it, even if she was a little giggly around the edges. It was almost like she had been expecting it, or it had been inevitable. Kallo had told her all about what had happened with Gil - of course he had, Suvi was his best friend and her advice on human matters was beyond invaluable - but he still didn’t like the idea that she could see something so apparently obvious that he couldn’t.

They had shared one night together - a surprisingly pleasant night, yes, one that hadn’t made things as awkward as he had expected, one that he could hardly stop himself reliving through his photographic memories at least once per day, a night he still thought about when he rocked into his own hand in the showers. That didn’t mean anything had to come from it.

“He most certainly is not. Gil doesn’t _woo_ ,” he said indignantly, “I am not _wooable_.”

Suvi smiled her same warm, placid smile and placed her hand on his arm. She leaned forward like she was going to tell him a secret, “Would you like to be?”

“That’s not the point,” Kallo deflected.

“Why not?” she said, “He’s interested in you, it seems, and you’re interested in him - no, don’t start denying it, Kallo, I know you. You can only blame so much on the drink. He makes you all jumpy and bright, and not in a bad way.”

“He’s insufferable, infuriating even,” Kallo said, although it felt like he was starting to fumble for reasons. He didn’t like the way Suvi’s smile grew incrementally, “He’s egotistical, and abrasive, and-- just so-- just a lot. Too much!”

“You’d trust him with your life,” Suvi said, “You’d trust him with your ship.”

Kallo found he couldn’t truthfully disagree with that. He looked away as he tucked the note into one of his pockets, “I don’t have time for this. I should get back to the bridge.”

“We came to Andromeda to push our boundaries, to make discoveries and explore new frontiers. Not all of them are out there,” Suvi said with a gentle nod to the viewport, “I’m not saying you force anything, or rush into something you’re not ready for. Just...consider it, at least. If anything, he’d be a challenge - and you love a challenge.”

 

\--

 

Kallo carefully placed the model on the table in his Nexus apartment. It was one of the very few personal items in the entire room, which otherwise looked like it could have belong to anybody. Since the Hyperion had arrived, bringing a Pathfinder with it, he only ever stayed there when he’d been forced off the Tempest and that didn’t happen often.

Kallo moved the model a few inches to the left. He frowned, then moved it a few inches to right again. He adjusted the angle of the base one way, then other. Somehow, it just didn’t look right - or at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. The reality was that he was just trying to find anything to do but read the message that was sitting in his comms inbox. It was from Gil, of course; Kallo had a good idea of what it would say. _Fancy a drink? How about a second round? Vortex part 2?_ Or something like it.

He managed to resist the urge to check for a little while longer by trying to do some more work for the Tempest refurbishments - he had half a dozen datapads scatter through the apartment, more files and blueprints and diagrams than he could read in a month, never mind the three days the adjustments would take. In the end, it was futile. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Suvi had said; she thought Gil would be good for him, or at least not a disaster, but Kallo couldn’t see it ending any other way.

He had to find out for himself.

Kallo opened his comms device and read the message: it was short, to the point, and conspicuously free of any innuendo or tasteless humour. It simply said that Gil was in his apartment with no plans for the evening, plus the address (like he didn’t know it already). There wasn’t even an explicit invitation, only the implication of one.

He didn’t know what to send as a reply, if one was even need; he decided against it. Did he have to bring anything, perhaps a bottle of wine? No, he decided against that too - he didn’t have any in his apartment and he didn’t want to waste time trying to hunt one down. Time wasn’t exactly of the essence but he still felt a strange sense of urgency, like he had to outrun the inevitable realisation that this was a really bad idea.

He told himself that the entire way from his own apartment to Gil’s, repeating it like a mantra: _this is a bad idea_. He had no excuse now, he couldn’t blame the drink for what he was doing, or why he was doing it, or the strange effervescent feeling that rose up in his chest when he thought about the way Gil’s stubble had felt against his own face. Kallo tried to push that thought out of his head before he hit the door alert, like he was afraid Gil would be able read it on his face.

The door opened and Gil was there, barefoot and holding a beer bottle in one hand. He looked as well groomed as ever - at least as far as Kallo could tell - but he was dressed in casual clothes, soft grey sweatpants and a clean white t-shirt that brought out the warm red tones of his brown skin. He looked good; the small hungry smile that curled the corners of his lips like he hadn’t been sure Kallo would show looked even better.

“Come in,” he said, so effortlessly casual in a way that Kallo was equal parts jealous of, annoyed by, and attracted to, “You want a beer?”

“No,” Kallo said automatically, then paused, “Yes. Thank you.”

Gil padded across to his small kitchen space, plucked a bottle out of the refrigeration unit, opened it with his bare hand and passed it over to Kallo, “How’s the tune-up going?”

“As well as to be expected. We have a good team working on it, they understand how important the Tempest is, but--” Kallo trailed off with a sour expression.

“But it still doesn’t feel right, having someone else’s hands all over our girl?” Gil suggested with a suggestive quirk of his brow that made Kallo feel like he was going to drop his bottle.

“Not exactly how I would phrase it,” Kallo said tartly. He took a sip of his beer as Gil led them to sit on the sofa; it was bitter but not wholly unpleasant. Mostly it was something to keep his nervous hands occupied. He perched on the edge of the cushion like he was read to run at any moment, his long legs nearly folded up to his chest.

When Gil sat beside him, their arms touched. He picked at the label on the bottle, felt the silence stretch into something thin and uncomfortable. It should have been more awkward than it was, but the way Gil was looking at him made him feel like he was going to choke on his own tongue if he tried to speak.

“What am I doing here?” he asked after a moment. Gil gave a huff of laughter and moved away, just an inch or so; Kallo appreciated the spaced but he wanted him back.

“Humouring me, I’m starting to think,” he said.

“Don’t you think this is a bad idea?” Kallo pressed on, “We are colleagues. Crewmates. If something went wrong, with us or with the ship, what then?”

“I’m not going to talk you into it, Kallo,” Gil said with a twitch of his hands, “But we’ve hated each other’s guts before, and it didn’t get in the way. We fucked before, and it still didn’t get in the way. The job comes first, because we’re better than that - but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy this. Enjoy each other.”

Kallo didn’t know if he wanted to be reassured or dissuaded, but he didn’t stop Gil when he placed a hand on his thigh, or when he craned his neck to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He managed to sit his bottle on the coffee table without looking as he turned his head to meet the kiss properly; he took Gil’s face between his hands, savoured the soft scrape of his stubble against his sensitive palms.

It had been so much easier when he had been drunk, Kallo realised. All the thoughts that suddenly washed over him - what did he do with his lips again? How was he supposed to breath? Was that too much tongue or not enough - they had all been smoothed over before. He didn’t know what to do and it was obvious. Gil stopped, pulled back slightly; his lips were wet and his eyes were bright, and he stroked a thumb over one of Kallo’s cheeks.

“You’re overthinking this, aren’t you,” he said. He almost sounded concerned.

“I’m a salarian,” Kallo said, because it explained so much of how this was overwhelming for him, “I can’t help myself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking it slow, you know. We could put this on ice, have a few beers first--” Gil began, but Kallo cut him off with a frustrated noise.

“I’m not going to get drunk every time we-- every time we do this,” he hissed, “Just bare with me. And don’t _laugh_.”

Gil smiled but sure enough, he didn’t laugh at Kallo. He ran his hands up his chest, let his fingers brush his long neck, “If you ever want me to stop…”

“Don’t you dare,” Kallo said pushing against Gil, crowding over him as he laid him flat on the sofa. If he wanted him to stop, he’d let him know. Right then and there, he just wanted to kiss him some more - practice made perfect, after all, and Kallo strived for perfection.

It was a mess of limbs on the narrow cushions - a knee here, an elbow there - but Kallo enjoyed how soft, how solid and warm Gil was underneath him, more than any salarian could be. His stubble was just as pleasantly irritating as he remembered it feeling, much like the man himself. His cock was hard against Kallo’s hip, and he rocked against him shamelessly; it made his slit throb, already slick with want.

After a while, Kallo forgot about the kissing altogether, letting his head rest against Gil’s shoulder as he closed his eyes and focused on mindlessly grinding against his thick thigh. It felt good, so easy to get caught up in, and the breathy little half-moans it pulled from the engineer only encouraged him.

“Hold on,” Gil said, and Kallo blinked in annoyance, “I like where this is going, but it’s not going any further on my couch. I like to think I left that behind in my teenage years, thank you very much.”

It took Kallo a second to realise what he before before it clicked. He untangled himself from around Gil and stood up. He let himself be led by the hand through to the sleeping area, trying to stay focused and not get distracted by how Gil’s hair was sticking up at all sorts of ridiculous angles. He wanted to run his fingers through it, to rub his face against it. He wanted to feel the hair on his chest chafe against his own concave abdomen, and have the insides of his thighs scoured by the rough stubble on his cheeks again.

Gil was a lot quicker at getting undressed than Kallo was, partly because he wasn’t dressed properly in the first place, partly because he wasn’t distracted by the quaint marvels of _hair_. When he pulled back the blankets on his bed with a flourish, Kallo was hopping on one foot to tug one of his boots off. He had to stop.

“Is that a--?” he began, staring at what was unmistakably a towel spread out on the bed, ready and waiting. He didn’t know whether to laugh or throw his boot at Gil, “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

“Some say presumptuous, I say _prepared_ ,” Gil said as he crossed over to Kallo and began to help him undress. His smile was infectious, and Kallo couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed at him, “Speaking of prepared, I’d like to fuck you tonight. How about it?”

“ _Gil,_ ” Kallo hissed, even though he knew he had to be doing it to deliberately provoke him, “At least give me some warning before you say something like that.”

“Warning? Like what?” Gil said. He pressed a kiss to the indent on Kallo’s bare chest, and began to gently urge him towards the bed. His legs hit the edge and he folded; under Gil’s heated gaze, Kallo shuffled back until he was lying on the towel. The rough fabric against the back of his thighs made his stomach clench deliciously - they way Gil crawled between them was even better, “Consider this your warning, then: I’m going to fuck you with my fingers, or my tongue, or my cock - whichever you want, for as long as you want, or at least until you soak through these sheets. What do you think - sound fair?”

Kallo could do nothing but gape at Gil, his brain a scrambled mess that couldn’t even connect to his mouth. He managed to nod, and Gil grinned.

“Good. Any preference?”

Kallo shook his head. Gil grinned wider. Clearly he had an idea in mind.

The noise that escaped Kallo’s lips as Gil pushed his thighs a little further apart and dipped between them to lick a flat-tongue stripe across his cloaca was obscene, and more than a little embarrassing. Each touch, each lick was more deliberate, deeper, firmer than when he was drunk, like he wanted to undo Kallo brick by brick instead of just ruining him. It was working; Kallo had his hands pressed to his mouth and his thighs locked round Gil’s head just to keep him in place.

Not that Gil had any plans of going anywhere if the way he speared his tongue into Kallo was any indication, his mouth crushed against his slit like he was trying to lick his way to his heart. In fact, it was Kallo who had to tap on his shoulder to get him to stop. Gil pulled away, licked the slickness from his lips.

“You okay?” he said, his own voice a little hoarse.

“You _said_ you were going to fuck me,” Kallo said. He sounded far more bold than he felt but he knew Gil would appreciate that edge of defiance. Sure enough, he bit his lip with a soft groan as he pushed himself onto his knees, letting Kallo’s legs slip from his shoulders. He ran his hand down his stomach, brushed his thumb across his open, wet slit.

“Are you sure?” he said, even though his cock was heavy and hard between his legs, making his own interest very apparent.

Kallo assumed he was hesitating because he had stopped him the last time they were together, but things had changed since then. Gil’s brazen inquiry - _can I fuck this?_ \- had gotten stuck in his head like a stone in his shoe, one he couldn’t work loose. It had made him bold in the way he explored his own body after that, touching himself almost recklessly compared to how he had been before. Even though he preferred human fingers, Kallo had discovered (confirmed, really, since he’d already tested the theory) that he was more than a little amenable to the idea of being penetrated like that.

“I’m certain,” Kallo said. More often than not, he had imagined it was Gil’s hands on him, Gil’s fingers _in_ him. He slid his gaze down Gil’s body to see his other hand was on his cock, stroking leisurely; Kallo was sure to imagine that too from then on.

“But are you absolutely certain?” Gil asked, grinning. He put a little pressure on his thumb, just enough to breach Kallo and make his hips twitch at the intrusion.

“Keep teasing and I’ll walk right out of here, you know I will,” he warned, but Gil didn’t seem to take him very seriously. He leaned over him, hands braced on either side of his long, thin torso; he kissed him, a quick drag of his lips against Kallo’s mouth, his chin.

“You won’t,” he said. Kallo could feel him smile against his skin, and it was true. He couldn’t even entertain the thought, not when he could feel the blunt head of Gil’s cock dragging against his entrance. He tried to move, arched his hips, anything to encourage him to keep going.

“If you think I’m going to beg--” he said, but choked on his words when Gil slid into him in one slow, firm thrust.

All thoughts, all threats and barbs, all biting comments were pushed out of him then - there was no room in him for anything but _Gil_ , and he felt impossibly full. It was borderline uncomfortable - tip-toeing the edge of too-much too-soon, since no part of a salarian’s anatomy was made to be penetrated, not like a human - but Gil was gentle, thorough, careful enough to bring him back down on the right side of pleasure.

He laughed as he rolled his hips, something soft and breathless. Kallo dragged his hands through his bristly, beautiful hair and made a questioning noise. Gil shook his head, pressed a kiss to the side of his neck.

“I’ve thought about this,” he admitted, “A lot, actually. Even before--”

“Even before,” Kallo echoed. Before what? Before when? Vortex? The Hyperion? It didn’t matter, he wasn’t asking. Gil had wanted him even when he hated him, and he had pursued him, he had made this happen. It made Kallo feel foolish, a little light headed, breathless in the same way Gil’s weight bearing down on him did.

They traded names, a desperate, breathy back and forth; Gil moaned against the dip in his chest, and Kallo turned his head to half-shout it into the pillow. He was glad it was such a perfect bite-sized name, he wasn’t sure he could manage two syllables at that moment.

He hooked his legs around him, crossing his ankles at the small of his back, encouraging him to keep going, a little faster, a little harder. He could let Gil set the pace while he was swallowed up in all the sensations his brain was struggling to catalogue, every point of contact it was trying to track. He didn’t know what this would look like, feel like, when he would remember it later; would it be a perfect representation, like every other memory he ever had? Or would this be too much for his poor neural pathways? It felt like too much, a full body static shock and building pressure in his gut that blotted out the clear, sharp edges.

Gil took him by the jaw, forced him to face him again; he kissed him deeply, hungrily, no teeth and too much tongue. Kallo banged his fist on his back, the only warning he could give before he hit his peak; the hot, wet gush was sudden but not a surprise, not the way it had been the first time. Gil laughed against his mouth, grabbed him by the hips (not hard enough to bruise) and fucked him through it, chasing his own release with the sort of single-minded focus Kallo only saw on the engineering deck. He came deep inside him, his own cum only adding to the slick mess between them. Kallo tried to convince himself he could feel it, but he couldn’t, not really.

Gil stilled on top of him, no strength to keep his weight off of Kallo any more, no energy to do anything but breathe through the aftershocks - Kallo knew because he felt the same. He didn’t mind that he was slightly crushed by him; he liked the weight, the warmth, the fact it kept the chill off his naked, damp body for a little longer. Instead of rolling off him, Gil eventually pushed himself up onto his knees, rocked back on his heels. He admired Kallo spread-out loose-limbed before him; he pulled the towel out from under his hips, cleaned himself and then Kallo with a dry corner.

“I’m fine, before you ask,” Kallo said. His voice didn’t sound as raspy as he thought it would. Gil raises his brows as he tossed the damp towel on the floor.

“I was going to ask if you wanted some water, actually, but since you’re fine…”

He laid down in the space beside Kallo, used his hips to nudge him until he reluctantly wiggled over and gave him more space. He caught the corner of the blanket and pulled it over them both. He kept his hands to himself, which Kallo appreciated; he felt like he’d been touched a little too much in the last half hour - probably more than he had in the past year put together, including all the physical exams. It didn’t stop Gil from staring though.

“Did you like your gift then?” he asked, and it took Kallo a second to realise he meant the Tempest replica and not the sex.

“I didn’t know you were a model-maker,” Kallo said, “A curious hobby.”

“I’m not. Never tried it before, I hated it. Time consuming. Too damn fiddly - you have no idea how many times I sliced my poor fingers with the exacto knife,” Gil sniffed, “I just thought it would hit the mark.”

Kallo was quiet for a moment. He pursed his lips in thought, “You should make one for yourself. Your apartment's almost as bare as mine.”

“A model of the Tempest?” Gil asked, like he hadn’t quite heard Kallo.

“Of course. It’s your ship too, is it not?”

Gil’s amused smirk softened around the edges, “Yeah. I guess it is.”


End file.
